Lee Ho-cheol was born on March 15, 1932 in Wonsan, Hamgyeongnam-do, North of Korea and lived through the tragedy of the ideological conflict in of Korea. His father refused to cooperate with Northern communists and his family had their property confiscated and were chased out of their hometown.
During the war, Lee Hocheol was drafted into the North Korean army and sent to the front in the South. He eventually rejoined his family in his native town, but ultimately decided to move to South of Korea by himself. A prolific writer as well as an activist, he participated in the democracy movement against the dictatorial regime of President Park Chung-hee and spent most of the 1970s in the prison.
In the 1980s, after the army general Chun Doo-hwan gained power through a coup d’etat, Lee Ho-cheol continued to battle against military dictatorship despite government persecution, and became actively involved in organizations such as the Association of Writers for Literature of Freedom and Practice (Jayu silcheon munin hyeobuihoe).
